Will the Davis Execution Fuel Opposition to the Death Penalty?

A crowd of several hundred protesters sat on the ground at the Georgia State Capitol to protest against the execution of Troy Anthony Davis.

Let’s take one more moment to digest the execution last night of Troy Davis.

The level of interest that the case generated was striking — political figures, celebrities, and anti-death penalty opponents worldwide rallied to Davis’s defense, pleading in recent days for Georgia to spare his life.

The question now is whether the debate over the Davis execution will fuel a broader debate about the merits of the death penalty?

Before we address that, let us briefly recap that Davis was convicted for killing police officer Mark Allen MacPhail in 1989. The conviction rested largely on eyewitness testimony, and many of the witnesses later recanted or altered their testimony.

Davis vigorously maintained his innocence up until the time he was executed.

The jury in Davis’s murder trial was aware that some of the eyewitness accounts of the murder were shaky, as noted in this detailed AP account of the case. And many, many judges reviewed the case but declined to overturn the conviction.

The level of interest in the case seems to owe in part to the skill of Davis’s advocates in galvanizing broad based support. Change.org, which bills itself as a platform for social change, released a statement yesterday noting that it had helped launch petition drives that had gathered hundreds of thousands of signatures from Davis supporters.

Larry Cox, executive director of Amnesty International USA, said anti-death penalty groups were amazed at the public reaction to the case. “This case went viral,” Cox said last night, speaking to reporters in Jackson, Georgia, which houses the prison where Davis was executed with a three-drug cocktail. “It took off globally,” Cox said. “He’s now a household name.”

Perhaps, but to what effect? This Salon article tackles the question of what the Davis case will mean for the broader death-penalty debate. In short, the piece expresses doubt that the Davis case will move the needle of public opinion about capital punishment. Gallup has found that support for the death penalty has remained consistent for the past decade, with Americans favoring it by a more than two-to-one margin, Salon reports, noting, however, that the level of death-penalty support has declined from the late 1980s and early 1990s, when it peaked at 80 percent.

“The reality is that we have seen other cases like Troy Davis’ before,” the Salon piece posits, “and it will probably take a lot more of them before Americans ever give up on the death penalty for good.”

But at Slate, Dahlia Lithwick theorizes that the Davis case could tip the scales against the death penalty, because it has generated such an unusual level of attention, even reaching the likes of Kim Kardashian, who has tweeted about the case. (According to the Christian Post, Kim Kardashian released a series of tweets Wednesday expressing disgust over the possible execution. “I want to vent about the execution of Troy Davis! He is getting the death penalty tonight but I believe he is innocent!!! #TooMuchDoubt”)

Lithwick writes that the Davis case underscores the fact that the fight over the death penalty is now happening at a more grassroots level. “The desire for certainty is finally beginning to carry as much weight as the need for finality,” she writes. “Americans are asking not so much whether [Davis] should be killed as whether this whole capital system is fair.”

Meanwhile, as witnessed by the Davis execution, those advocating for the death penalty tend to comprise a relatively silent majority.WSJ reporter Cameron McWhirter, who covered the execution last night in Jackson, noted that while Davis supporters were barraged with media attention, a small group of pro-execution advocates sat at a picnic table, removed from the media crush. They carried signs declaring, “Georgians for Justice.” Asked about the case, the group declined comment.

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The Law Blog covers the legal arena’s hot cases, emerging trends and big personalities. It’s brought to you by lead writer Jacob Gershman with contributions from across The Wall Street Journal’s staff. Jacob comes here after more than half a decade covering the bare-knuckle politics of New York State. His inside-the-room reporting left him steeped in legal and regulatory issues that continue to grab headlines.

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